DAY 70
06.13.07
TREE 76I met up with Will at Frisbee Field in Cherokee Park to throw the disc. It was another beautiful, warm, sunny day with the occasional large, white, puffy cloud. We stopped throwing and got some water and he brought me below a wooden bridge. I monkeyed underneath on these skinny metal rods that really hurt my hands and wore out my arms. So we took it slow to where we walked to climb a tree. Up the hill towards the entrance I saw my old high school art teacher drive by in a purple wagon with “Democrat 4 Life” on the rear windshield. He didn’t recognize me.
I picked a smaller tree with numerous low branches and Will was surprised that I was picking one so easy. But I said that all trees offer their own challenges. Well Will didn’t climb with me because he badly rolled his ankle. I said climb without that leg and he challenged me to show him how. So I did. I climbed up 70% of the way with only my arms and right leg. It took a lot of different planning and movement. I stopped ’cause I knew I could only get higher with both legs. While I was up there a bike cop rode right underneath and said hello to Will. He didn’t see me and I was glad. I wonder if he would have hassled me? The climb down was fun and I stayed out on the branches. Another fun climb, with a nice friendly challenge.
6-13-08: That is Will in the first picture sitting on the rock. You’ll be glad to hear that Will’s ankle, one year later, is good. I think he might be nervous about re-injuring his ankle from time to time, but he is out and about being active. A few weeks ago when Will, Basil and I were at Joe Creason Park I tried to climb a tree with no legs. I got up about 10 for 12 feet before my arms just wore out. I also just let my legs go loose like they were broken, and I pulled myself up and my right knee rammed into a limb which made it hurt for a few days.
That teacher that drove by was Mr. Whitehouse. My high school art teacher from Ballard. He was a big influence on me and is a big reason I am still doing art today. He really nurtured my technique with drawing and painting. When I went to college I was able to skip 3 levels of basic classes and go right into the advanced painting studio. I befriended some great upperclassmen there that I still am friends with today. That was one of the great things about college… having class with students from all years. Anyway, my sophomore year DeWitt Godfrey was my sculpture professor and he opened my eyes to 3-d work, contemporary and concpetual work. The work of Sol LeWitt was particularly intriguing to me. I left traditional ideas of representational work behind. I began to do these very geometric drawings that were created using visual language derived from a musical scale on a guitar fret board. I did a lot of work that used systems incorporating numerical patterns to create marks on paper. I was tired of seeing something in my head and just rendering it on the page. I wanted to be surprised. I wanted to make work where the final result was something I could have never imagined. Here are some examples of work of this nature I did while in Seattle:
The brown one is a series of folds carefully folded along quarter inch increments. When the glossy paper was creased, it left a white line. The second is one page of a series of 8 where every combination of two letters of the alphabet where each set of 2 letters are placed on a 10×10 grid and aranged diagonally in 4 directions. You can see all of the series and more work at http://toddsmith.deviantart.com/gallery There are a few pages in the gallery, also if you click in the small thumbnail image you’ll get the larger view, click it again and you’ll get an even larger view. Descriptions are also written below.
Then at the end of Junior year I had that project where I made a video of me walking in a straight line and climbed over things. I talked about that in my introduction from April 4th on this blog.
So back to tree climbing. I climbed a tree in Cherokee Park again up by Hogan’s Fountain. I spotted this tree last summer and thought it would be perfect for an interactive piece. The limbs start low and are numerous. I thought it would be perfect for kids to climb on. Which gave me the idea for the project. I’d have a place right on the ground by the trunk with instructions: Take a ribbon, climb the tree and tie your ribbon on the highest branch you reach. After all these kids climb all over the tree it will be littered with colorful ribbons. A fond memory for these kids to take with them for the rest of their lives. Perhaps starting them on a life of tree climbing. Here are some pictures and a video with my thoughts. During the filming a little girl came up to the trunk to climb the tree. She saw me and got scared away. But that was a good sign that kids like this tree. Plus it is really close to a playground, it just is perfect for this project. This first picture is of the trunk… it is a little blurry but I thought it looked neat.
